Hey, do you still watch #Glee?
Hey, do you still watch #Glee? They do clever songs sometimes, right? Well, last night they aired a very clever banjo-y cover of Sir Mix-Alot’s “Baby Got Back” that people seemed to love. The only problem is, the arrangement they used (and possibly the actual recorded track) was created several years ago by my pal, Jonathan Coulton.
Legally, Jonathan is probably in a tricky position. Is there Intellectual Property precedent sufficient for him to recoup compensation on his original arrangement of a cover tune that he properly licensed in the first place? Would it even be worthwhile for a small, independent musician to pursue legal action against a huge company like Fox that keeps a lawyer in every office for their executives to hang their coats and hats on until something like this comes up? Does the fact that it’s tricky and sticky make what was done to Jonathan okay?
As a person who tries to make a living working in TV, it’s probably not even that smart for me to be piping up about this. I’m sure I’ll be put on some “Do Not Ever Hire These Bigmouths” list. But what’s right is right, and just because something might possibly be “technically sort of legal if you squint” doesn’t mean that it was okay. The show that postures itself as sticking up for underdogs and music geeks and telling kids that if they are daring and original it will pay off, is actually being a cartoon-style bully.
It would have been no skin off Glee’s nose to either notify/ask permission or even handsomely compensate Jonathan for his hard work, perhaps by giving him a cut of their staff “musical arrangement” guy’s salary for that week and a portion of the proceeds from the downloads of the singles Glee is selling on iTunes of “their” version.
Speaking of the two versions, here they are, mashed-up, alternating not every few measures, but beat by beat. Maybe the reason Glee hasn’t said anything is that it would be impossible to defend or deny. http://musicmachinery.com/2013/01/25/joco-vs-glee/
#Comedy #Writing #Advice #Not #Necessarily #Good
I posted this to my Facebook account a few days ago & I’m posting it here too, in case anyone who subscribes to this Tumblr, but isn’t my friend on Facebook, is interested. You’re missing some good comments from the original post, but that’s the price you pay for not wanting to know when I get in a fight with a friend from High School about gun control! Probably worth it. I certainly could have written and edited this better, but my heart is true. I’m a pal and a confidante.
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A young twitter comedian friend moved from his home town to NYC to work as a comedian and TV writer, he hopes. He asked for my advice. I’m posting it here because maybe some of you will have had a different experience than I, or you’ll think of something I forgot to mention. If so, weigh in and he’ll see it here.
Dear xxxxx,
Congrats on making a move to further your career.
I can only speak to my experience (which at this point, is kind of
dated) and what I see people your age/in your position doing now. Take
everything with a grain of salt, because you will certainly have to
follow your own path which is equal parts the choices you make and
random luck, probably.
New York is a fun city, but it ain’t easy making it as a writer here,
simply because there are far fewer shows to be staffed on. It’s evened
up a bit if what you want to do is late night/comedy/variety
(Letterman, Fallon, Stewart, Colbert, SNL, plus some smaller cablers
here and there) but if you want to ever write sitcoms, films, etc.
it’s a very small pool* and it’s about to get smaller with the loss of
30 Rock. That means there are many fewer shows to ever even get a
starting position on to work your way up, but maybe you can if you
work hard and catch a break. Who knows? As for working on SNL, why not
you? Why not shoot for that and if you end up working on some cable
trifle for 13 weeks on your way, great. Don’t minimize what you allow
yourself to want before you even start pursuing it in earnest. You
know what I’m saying? Because if you’re like, “All I want is to get
started on some humble little show doing a not important job, etc.
etc.” that might be the best you ever do. No boss has ever been like,
“Young man, what is your name? You are so gentle, you are going
straight to the top!” Work hard. Be good. Go big. Don’t go home. (That
being said, if you manage to land a not important job on some humble
little show, treat it like it is an important job on a big deal
network show. Not by taking it too seriously. Not by being an
officious dick. By being reliable. Honest. Responsible. Enthusiastic
and willing. I leave out “eager” and “ambitious” because I think
people often misunderstand those two words. You’re trying to learn a
trade. People will be much more willing to share what they know with
you if they don’t feel like you’ll push them under a cab the first
chance you get. It’s a delicate balance.)
Yes, get involved with a local performance place as soon as you can.
Form your group of peers at UCB or wherever you decide to put down
roots. In 5, 10, 15 years, this will be the new class of folks making
it “in the business” and you want to be there to learn together with
these future geniuses and try to become one yourself. I actually think
it’s pretty important. Do it before you have many responsibilities,
when your evenings are free and your social life is yours. I’ve known
many people who regret not having done it, and I know nobody who
wishes they could go back and erase it. So, yes, take a class. I know
they’re expensive. Tell all of your relatives that this is what you
want for Christmas/birthdays from here on in. Eat rice and beans and
put the food money you save aside. I imagine almost everyone at UCB
has terrible gas from eating so much rice and beans in order to afford
those classes, and I think it’s worth it. I don’t know if it actually
IS, because I never did it, but I do so wish I had, and now it is TOO
LATE FOR ME! Heed my warning.
Doing temp jobs is good. You have to buy those rice/beans. But I’d try
to avoid doing anything outside the realm of TV production if you can.
TV production, by it’s nature, is temporary, so there are a lot of
gigs you can take that will at least get you near a TV show so you can
see how the mechanics of different things work (comedy/reality/game
show/infomercial/talk show, blah, blah, blah). Check Mandy.com and
other similar TV job listing sites looking for PA gigs. Once you do a
few, and you’ve done your best, with luck, people will know you as a
reliable fella and start to call you for other things they have coming
up and your work will become more steady. HERE’S WHERE IT GETS TRICKY,
SON! You will probably get many calls asking you to be a PA on lots of
shows that are far afield from the type of show and type of work that
you think you want to do. If you’re starving, you will sort of have to
do it, sure. But if you are in a position to choose not to do
something that will ultimately distract you from the path that you
know is your destiny, consider very carefully. I know approximately
2,700 people who work somewhere within the machinery of TV, analyzing
ratings or finessing budgets, who started out just like you’re
starting out, to be a comedic god. 108 of those people are happy.
2,592 of those people are like, “I don’t know what happened.” I think
I do. They got distracted by other things. They traded security for
satisfaction, which sometimes happens and it’s sad. Or sometimes it
happens because someone’s met someone and settled down and had a
family which requires as much security as you can marshall, and that’s
okay, because you’ve let one type of satisfaction go in favor of
another type of satisfaction that is now more important to you. (Those
are the happy 108!)
You will need an agent or lawyer, down the line, if you plan to submit
writing packets to legit network shows or some of the bigger cable
shows, which again, I encourage you to shoot for. There is this whole
underbelly (I’m being kind of dramatic, here) of non-Union shows that
employ non-Union writers at non-Union wages without Union benefits
that people bust their balls on just as much as any of the people who
work on the biggest deal shows you watch. They’re pros, they work long
hours and they make a lot of money for their networks without much
fanfare. There’s a lot of that in New York. Some of those jobs you
probably could get without representation. Some of them, you still
might need a rep to negotiate on your behalf, even if it’s a job you
sought out and landed yourself. I don’t have a ton of experience with
agents, but I can tell you that I wish I had been more persistent in
being represented by someone throughout my entire career. I got my
first staff writing job when I was 23, without an agent, because it
was a show that I already worked on, and I had some freelance joke
writing experience on some other shows. Because I hadn’t gotten the
job through an agent, I went for years without one. Then it became a
bad habit, and I found myself kind of hopelessly thin-skinned when it
came to dealing with agents who were not interested in representing me
or I felt grossed out by the couple that did want to represent me.
That may be because of my own complex psychological issues with
people, or it may be because it’s just true. Agents are a necessary
evil, I think, at some point. The good news is, I feel like many
agents think that clients are a necessary evil for them, so get used
to being schmoozy and pesty when you must.
Know this: I truly believe that your dedication and talent will take
you where you are meant to be. That sounds more new-agey than I intend
it to. Let me explain. What I mean is, eventually, I believe almost
everyone gets near a place that is appropriate to an average of his or
her dedication/talent. You might be off-the-charts talent wise, but
have zero dedication, and it would probably wind you up somewhere
middle-of-the-road. You might have a modicum of talent with a buttload
of dedication and wind up somewhere more impressive than you imagined.
You might be bursting with talent AND dedication that simply does not
resonate with television network executives no matter how hard you
try, so in frustration, you go off and create your own thing and you
do it on stage for a smaller loyal audience who, when they come to see
it, know it is the best thing they have ever witnessed and they will
remember it forever, even if the world does not. There is great value
in that, even if it’s not the original vision. The trick is knowing
yourself and embracing what you can do and not limiting what you dream
of and not feeling hurt when you fall far short. Because there will
always be another thing. Nothing can ever be your only thing you ever
try or do, or the last thing you will try or do. Unless you decide
that. These are all things that I’m just starting to think about now,
after 19 years of doing this, in my extremely late thirties and I’m so
barely-forty-you-can-hardly-call-me-forty forties. It might be too
soon to talk to you about these things, but I’m planting a seed! In
your mind! What I’m trying to say is that your career will be like a
Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, which you are probably too young to
remember, but that’s your fault for being young. The difference
between your career and the books, though, is that making one or two
“wrong” choices probably won’t end the fun like it could in the book,
it’ll just be a swerve in the path and if that swerve is bad enough, it will
provide fodder for your comedy, and you’ll do what you have to to get
back on track. It is my sincere belief that very few talented comedy
writers get stuck being an associate producer on Maury Povich, where
they pass away after 22 years of service.
This IS new agey, though! There is only love and fear. They are the
only two reasons any of us ever does anything. EVER. Always try to do
something because you are motivated by love. Always try to avoid doing
anything where fear is motivating you. By the same token, if fear is
stopping you from doing anything, don’t let it. I don’t know what to
do if love is stopping you from doing something. I really don’t. Maybe
don’t do it? Or maybe love never tries that shit because it’s love? If
I figure it out, I will let you know.
I hope this helps.
*It is not easy to get one of these jobs in LA, either. They do not
grow on trees! If you stick with this, you will know many, many people
who do get these jobs and sometimes you will wonder, “How did THAT
happen to THAT person?” The answer is usually that the person is very
talented and worked very hard to make it happen, being disciplined and
making smart choices in ways you might not have even been aware of. In
some cases, that will not be true at all and you will have been right
to wonder. Know that for every person you hear of getting one of these
amazing jobs, there are probably at least five people, just as
talented and disciplined who tried and didn’t get that job. There are
a lot of crazy talented people out there trying to do this thing! If
you pick out what you think is THE ABSOLUTE WORST show on television,
you can be assured that at least some of the people who work on it are
crazy talented, despite the show they work on being terrible, in your
opinion. There’s a lesson in there, I’m sure. I’ll let you figure it
out because I talk too much.
That last map I posted contained a bit of blue, a good deal of...
That last map I posted contained a bit of blue, a good deal of purple and lots of red. On the face of it, like most basic electoral maps, it probably looks like Mitt Romney should be the President-elect right now. However, this is the same
Here's the map that I think is really interesting....
Here's the map that I think is really interesting. Obviously, not everyone within a county within a state votes the same way. Just look at the election signs up and down your street! Just remember the last political discussion you had with
Here's the map that shows Tuesday's vote by county...
Here's the map that shows Tuesday's vote by county and visually expands the size of each county by how many people live within it, so it gives a more accurate explanation of how such a small dot of land could account for so many votes while such huge swaths of land could account for so few. Acres do not equal people, I guess you could say. (5 of 7)
Here's the map that I've seen some disappointed...
Here's the map that I've seen some disappointed folks posting. It's the Democratic versus Republican vote by county. On its face, it looks like there is no way President Obama or the various other Democratic office holders who won on Tuesd
Here's the map that accounts for how many electoral...
Here's the map that accounts for how many electoral college votes are assigned to each state. Note: the electoral college is slightly biased to states with lower populations, so that's why Wyoming looks bigger in this one. Note also: the electoral college was originally meant to preserve the power of slave owners! (Part 3 of 7)
Here's the map that accounts for the actual population in...
Here's the map that accounts for the actual population in each state (aka voters), which is why Rhode Island is twice the size of Wyoming! (Part 2 of 7)
Here's the meat & potatoes map they put on the ice at...
Here's the meat & potatoes map they put on the ice at Rock Center on election night. It tells a story, but one that is easily misunderstood. (Part 1 of 7)
How President Obama won, with purty maps!
Who won and who did not aside, it seems like one thing that is still a little bit confusing to people is the way population distribution and the electoral college work. It IS confusing and political redistricting/gerrymandering makes it eve
Share if you support the troops!
Hi friends! I see many of you often post pictures that you ask us to “Share if you support the troops!” It’s a nice reminder to be grateful to the men and women who risk their lives to protect us. But, while it is certainly pleasant, in truth, it probably doesn’t do much more than to create warm, fuzzy feelings toward those selfless individuals who serve our country.
I’d like to talk to you about what happened yesterday when a specific group of people had a chance to do something bigger to support our troops. Something that literally would support them. I’m talking about The Veterans Jobs Bill, a bipartisan bill, meaning that folks who were Democrats and Republicans helped draft it. The bill would have put jobless veterans back to work doing a variety of occupations that would have also stood to strengthen our country’s infrastructure. (You may or may not know that while unemployment is high, it is higher among our veterans, many of whom struggle to re-enter the workforce after returning home from war. Over 720,000 service men and women are currently unemployed, including 220,000 who stepped up to serve after 9/11.)
Yesterday, Congress voted on this bill. It needed 60 votes to avoid a filibuster. It received 58. 40 Senate Republicans voted in opposition. 40 Senate Republicans voted to keep our veterans unemployed.*
Some of the reasons they gave were vague. “There is no proof that this would work.” You know what is proven NOT to work? Doing nothing. Some reasons were more specific. “This bill is not paid for!” Well, actually, it was to be paid for by collecting unpaid taxes, which was part of the plan y’all had discussed and said was a good idea. So…are you sure these are the reasons you want to stick by?
Here’s what I think, and here’s the conclusion I believe anyone who takes a really good hard look at the situation will reach. I think they voted against it to keep the unemployment numbers as high as they can. I think they voted against it because they cannot stand the idea of the current administration having a success. I think they voted against it because they will brazenly put their party ahead of our country…ahead of the men and women they had a hand in sending off to war. These are the same Senators who are quick to stand at a podium and call for all of us to support the troops. Quicker still when it comes to pointing out an opponent’s perceived failure in supporting them. But when they had the chance to actually DO something real and tangible to support our troops, they turned their backs on them.
I know many of you will say, “Oh, both sides do it!” Well, I reject that. Because in this specific case? ONE SIDE did it, to a man.* What else on earth could possibly even be the explanation? There isn’t one. I don’t even think they’re really trying to sound convincing on this because they believe that we are that stupid that we can’t connect the dots and stand back to see the pattern.
Congress works for us. They are paid between $174,000-$223,000 per year. Usually, they’re in session around 140 days of that year, give or take, and they’re supposed to spend some of their many weeks off, as well as their recess during the month of August, checking in with their constituents. That’s us! When’s the last time your Senator asked what you thought of something s/he would be casting a vote on - a vote that is supposed to represent you? If your Senator had called and said, “Hey, what do you think about this? Should we help send vets back to work or just sit on our hands?” how would you have replied?
In 1947-48, the Congress was referred to as the “Do Nothing Congress” by Harry Truman, because they only passed 906 pieces of legislation. The 112th Congress is on track to shatter that threshold, by passing just 173 pieces. They have failed to pass any Federal budget for three years. Three years? What’s been different for the past three years or so that would make it utterly impossible for these people to do the bare minimum of their very crucial jobs? OH, I THINK I SEE WHAT IT MIGHT BE! DO YOU? I also know that if I flatly refused to do my job, I would be fired. That probably goes for all of you too, no?
Yellow ribbon magnets are nice, but many of these men and women are home NOW and those magnets have been put away. What are we going to do NOW to support these people who put their careers and their lives and their security on hold to let us keep enjoying ours?
*If you want to support the troops, take a look at this list. These are the people who said, “Nah, let’s not do anything. Let’s stop this bill.” Support the troops by putting these people on blast. Support the troops by paying attention to what’s going on at the bottom of your ballot, because no matter who is chosen to be the President come November, it’s these folks who will choose whether to drive our country off a cliff or not. What will you say when they next ask for your support?
Alexander (R-TN)
Ayotte (R-NH)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lee (R-UT)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Moran (R-KS)
Paul (R-KY)
Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Toomey (R-PA)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)
Mark Kirk and James Inhofe did not vote.
robdelaney: https://twitter.com/#!/caissie Sometimes it feels...
Sometimes it feels like you're just crying into a void about something you're not even sure you have the right to be sad about. But then you realize someone was listening and you feel a little better. Thanks for being my someone sometimes, Rob Delaney.
I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend and hero, Joan...
I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend and hero, Joan Rivers, for this fancy-schmancy magazine. I hope you will considering buying it and reading it, not just for my article, but for ALL the great articles (but mostly mine) in it.
Click to Buy Now! Part One of Two "The Funny Issue: Fashion." IPAD available Nov 23rd for $3.99 (Includes Part 1 & 2)
Kaissie's KISS Report
So, yeah, we got the tickets for KISS! Yay! We bought them on eBay, which many people cautioned against, but none of the other ticket resellers would allow you to buy three tickets – only 2 or 4, which didn't work for us – so we risked it. Luckily, the sellers wound up being a family who also bought tickets to take their KISS-loving child, only to find out this 4th of July that he was terrified of fireworks, which, as you know, are gonna happen at a KISS show. They also lived not-so-far from us, so they agreed to an in-person pickup, which we figured would allow us to inspect the tickets for realism before handing over the cash. If those tickets had been fake, we could have pulled the old "Look! A werewolf!" and run away, $300 still in hand.
E, the 11 year-old, knew we were going. His desire to tag along for ironic purposes was the reason we had to get three tickets. L, the 9 year-old KISS lover who inspired this whole shebang, had no idea, but when we piled into the Prius with a video player, stacks of books and a bag of snacks, he started freaking out because he hates long car rides. So much so, that we broke down and told him by the time we reached the end of our cul de sac. When we showed him the tickets, he was stoic, but I know my kid. He was stoked and did not complain once during the 220-mile drive to Manchester, NH, even when he started to get carsick. (Poor muffin had to shut off his Ernest Scared Stupid video, take off his little bifocals and close his eyes. Aw!)
We arrived and parked at the Verizon Wireless Arena with enough time to get something to eat. You know what there is to eat near the Verizon Wireless Arena? Not much! We walked down the road a bit and went to what had to be the only restaurant in a mile radius. You know who else was there? Every other person that had tickets to see KISS! If there had been a terrible fire at that place, and we'd all perished, I estimate the loss of vintage KISS concert tees and barbed wire armband tattoos would have been in the multi-million dollar range. We ate on the patio while people blew smoke in the kids' faces, then walked back to the venue.
Those of you who know L know that he is deeply passionate and thoughtful about the things he loves including comic books, science fiction, comedians and rock and roll. You also know that he hates being the center of attention, until the second he doesn't, then he hates it again. He's a complicated little dude who just wanted to take everything in on his own terms. I asked him if he wanted to buy a tee-shirt and he said "No, thank you." I knew this was because A) I was focusing too much on him for his liking and B) he loathes heavily/cheaply screenprinted clothing with paint so thick it is rubbery and stiff. But because I worried that he might regret the decision later, I insisted, and we grabbed a bargain-priced $25 youth t-shirt (E respectfully declined – he's not THAT ironic). Then we headed to our seats in section 1 on the floor, row MM.
We sat there for a while watching the place fill up. I expected a lot of KISS cosplay, but still was shocked by how many people were in various stages of KISS dress. There was a guy in our row who was in FULL Gene Simmons regalia, as was his little boy and everyone kept stopping to get their picture taken with them. Fun! We also spent a little time scanning the crowd to see if we could find any non-white attendees. We couldn't!
The place was about half-full when the opening band, Bad City, took the stage. We put in our earplugs and let it happen. I have to say, I feel bad for Bad City. They tried really hard – really, really hard – to entertain everyone. The lead singer was incredibly energetic and attempted to work the crowd but the crowd was all, "We did not come here to be worked by you, thanks." The guy took off his jacket by the second song, and by all rights, that should have at least gotten the attention of the women and gay KISS fans (?) but to no avail. For my part, I found him to be doing such an affected impression of a "rock star" that I could only look at him through my fingers. I leaned in to L and said, "This guy's kind of a goof." L replied, "He IS a douche!" I replied, "I SAID HE'S A GOOF!" L responded, "OH, SORRY I SAID DOUCHE THEN!" Earplug-based miscommunication! I tried to find a video of this guy so you could arrive at your own conclusions, but I couldn't find any. All the band's videos feature the guitar player as the lead singer, so I imagine the goof-douche was a recent addition, probably suggested by some Reuben Kincaid-like manager, or maybe they found him on YouTube like Journey did with that Filipino guy who took over for Steve Augeri who took over for Steve Perry. I love that guy! Anyway, I'll say this about Bad City. They kept it short and they had a song entitled "Call Paul Stanley", which probably didn't hurt them in securing this gig. Look for my new essay "Email Tina Fey" out on Tumblr soon!
At that point, the place was pretty full. During the break we took out our earplugs and chatted. I asked L if he was excited to be at his first concert. I meant in a big arena, of course, but L pointed out that his first concert was Ted Leo, and that Ted Leo was also his second, third and fourth concerts. And then he said, "Plus, we got to visit him in the recording studio one time, which is SO cool because not many people ever get to do something like that." This pleased me.
We were expecting a second opener. I'm not sure why, but we were. So, imagine our surprise when the big video screens lit up, and started rolling a short video of KISS arriving at the stage door and walking in and then walking through another door and then, there they were on stage! The crowd went crazy! Except L, who just sort of stood there, in a trance. Because everyone was standing, I was trying to imagine what L, a shorty, was seeing at that point. I guessed it was probably the top of the band's respective hairs. Then that got me speculating on whether they were wearing wigs. My study was inconclusive. The nice people behind us kept poking L and telling him to stand on his chair, but if you know L, you can imagine the result of being poked by strangers, no matter how nice. He stayed put, but I gave him my iPhone and he (sort of geniusly, if I say so myself) held it up, not so much to record the show, but to use it as a periscope of sorts. Still, I have 20 minutes of bad video on my phone if anyone is interested.
Our seats were so close that we could feel the pyrotechnics. The family who sold us the tickets was totally right to keep their fragile child at home. I started to hope that if the guys WERE wearing wigs that those wigs were flame-retardant. KISS played the hits and, when excitement finally overcame prudence, L discovered that he could stand on the crossbar of his seat, making him about adult-height. It must have been killing him, because he was leaning on me so hard for balance, but he was also squeezing me so hard, for love. I will take it!
Here's what I was impressed by: The guys all moved around stage a lot so everyone could get a good look at 'em. Plus, they were on these huge screens the whole time. Like, say, even if you were wearing full makeup, maybe from a certain angle, your facelift scars would still be slightly visible to thousands of people. I'm not saying that's what happened, I'm just saying…that could have definitely happened. In any case, there's no way KISS could have gotten away with sending out look-alikes, which I would totally do if I was in their position. They're in their mid-to-late fifties, toddling around on cuckoo platform boots! Let someone else do it!
Here's what I was NOT impressed by: As we said, these fellas are no spring onions.* I would never suggest that they alter the essence of their cleverly crafted personas. I'm merely suggesting that they consider switching to spandex pants without big peekaboo cutouts on the sides. Even "Evil Incarnate" needs to consider age-appropriate dress.
I did love Paul Stanley's dancing, facial expressions and speaking voice, especially every time he said, "Manchestuh, New Hampshuh!" which was approximately ninety-three times. He's like Vince Noir, but real and from Queens! Paul threw a million guitar picks into the audience. We didn't catch any, but I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out where all the picks were coming from and if Paul's constant throwing of them made it impossible for him to actually be playing guitar. I couldn't suss out the answer to either of those questions, so I went back to wig-speculation. Still unclear!
They sang about licking it up and inches and stuff, but Paul also took time to have the cameras pick out the littlest members of the KISS Army in the crowd. There were hundreds! He made a solemn oath to them, then, that KISS would be there for them, just as they had been for their moms and dads.
By the time not-Peter Criss stepped out from behind his drum kit to sing "Beth" L was deep into this thing. I cautiously looked over to see my kid, the most private, non-demonstrative and terrified of any embarrassment whatsoever ever kid you've ever seen, singing along. When his 11 year-old too-cool-for-school brother saw him, even E's cynical little eyes misted up. We felt kind of like Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams in that movie where he’s a doctor. Not Patch Adams, the other one. Awakenings!
L knew every single song and thoroughly enjoyed Gene's tongue waggling and blood-spitting during "God of Thunder" and both boys were impressed by the platforms that raised the members of KISS to the rafters amidst a blizzard of confetti during the grand finale, "Rock and Roll All Night". When it was all through, L plucked a single rectangle of still-floating tissue paper from the air, put it in his pocket and said, "That's a keeper."
Then we drove home 220 miles and everybody fell asleep except me.
*Please enjoy this politically incorrect video of KISS, when they WERE a spring onions, on the Mike Douglas show in 1974. It begins with Gene Simmons interacting with one of my favorite comedians or yore, Totie Fields, back when she still had two legs and was alive.
Today's the day. I started this Tumblr just over a year ago,...
Today's the day. I started this Tumblr just over a year ago, because I wrote a funny little YA vampire book and my agent (still feels weird to say that) told me to announce it somewhere, and here is where I did. Now the book is here! Today! I kinda feel like I did when I was a YA. Like, when I was waiting to "become" a "woman." I kept checking and checking and waiting and wishing. I just knew it was gonna change everything. And when it finally happened, life wasn't really all that different except my stomach hurt and my pants didn't feel right. Still, I knew and I'm sure I walked around with a dumb look on my face. Déjà vu!
I've said this a million times, but this whole deal never would have happened without the help of my Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook and real life friends. If it weren't for you people telling me, "Hey, that's a good idea!" and "Why don't you try doing that!" I would have just continued watching Dr. Oz at 11 and 3, with an episode of Nancy Grace's Swift Justice in between, then wondering where the heck my day went. Thank you for cheering me on every step of the way!
I realize that I also need to thank you for buying this book, because I know you're the ones who are. I was looking over my contract (weird!) and crunching the numbers, and as near as I can tell, I need to sell something like 36,724 copies to not be a total embarrassment. Because of all of you, I have a good start, AND if each of you were to convince four or five highly impressionable twelve-year-olds to buy it too, it will be embarrassment averted! I don't call this a pyramid scheme. I call this a PYRAMID SUCCESS!!!
Besides flat out strong-arming 'tweens, there are other ways you can help. If you bought the book and read it and liked it, leaving a short review on Amazon.com or on Goodreads.com is a huge deal in terms of selling the book to people I don't actually know. Heck, you can leave a review even if you didn't enjoy it, and that'll learn me to write a book you might like better in the future!
Of course, I'd never ask you to do me multiple favors without offering something in return. I am doing a cool little drawing on my book blog and you can enter to win here: www.CaisBook.com
I'm not sure if I believe in omens, but today happens to be the 9th anniversary of the day I published one of my most favorite works. That guy up there. So, I'm probably going to close my laptop, start thinking about cakes and balloons and let this whole book thing take care of itself for a while. But do I feel lucky.
Tumblr doesn't let you reblog yourself?
That’s just…probably for the best.
I don’t want to make too big of a deal about it, because it’s just a week on a calendar whizzing by, but it’s a week that marks the passage of a really important year for my family.
No hubris here. No temptation of fate. We understand that some days will be great and some days will be good and some days will be bad/dark/terrifying. We remain vigilant with our middle fingers at the ready to tell any bad/dark/terrifying days just where WE think they can go.
And we’re having many more good days. Today is so good it’s gorgeous. E is outside and he just texted, “Still fine.” I can’t ask for more than that.
Thanks to all of you who’ve shared your stories, and asked questions and sent love. And thanks to Tumblr for being my circle of folding chairs in a church basement. (No thanks for not letting me reblog myself just this once. Ever heard of a case-by-case basis? Well, ha ha, you can’t block me from block-quoting, can you, Tumblr?!!)
A Supposedly Fun Thing I Would Do
Again in a Second
Right off the bat, I've done a dumb thing. By calling this um…blog…entry what I have, it looks like I've set up a comparison between myself, a joke writer (to be generous), and David Foster Wallace, a guy who was a really real writer to the realest real degree. A hyper-literate person reading this might even be moved to ask, "Who in Abaddon does she think she is?" to which my answer would be, "Definitely not David Foster Wallace. Nope. Nuh uh." I'm just a chick with a Tumblr who wants to talk about some stuff.
My title, of course, is a respectful nod to DFW's 1997 collection of essays, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again" which contains the piece "Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise" which originally and famously appeared in Harper's, a magazine for "smarts." In it, he describes his adventures aboard the MV Zenith, and he describes himself too, by his habit of doing things like nicknaming the ship the "Nadir" and explaining how all of the forced pampering and relaxation ultimately led him to feel despair. Indeed, he uses the word 'despair' no fewer than eight times throughout the article, and although he is painfully funny, knowing what we now know about what would occur in his future, it is also merely painful.
I'd been on two cruises before. One, in my twenties, was paid for by the generous father of a friend whose family went on bi-yearly cruises and believed that massive ocean liners were really the only way to get anywhere worth getting to. The second, many years later, was a Nickelodeon Family Cruise, which me and my now-husband and now-children were able to take at a discounted rate because of my long-time employment at Viacom. Even with the discount, to sail the seas with the cast of iCarly still cost a year's worth of mortgage payments. Put that in your despair-pipe and try to smoke it.
If you haven't read the essay, you really should, even though if you're anything like me, it will require you to sometimes stop and look up what words like "thanatopic" and "peripeteia" mean. (Don't worry! I won't spoil the definitions for you here!)
I cannot disagree with any of what David Foster Wallace says about cruising. For me, it all inelegantly came down to a morbid fascination with how much intricately carved fruit people seemed to be ingesting versus a mounting, and unfortunately quite rational, fear of shipboard toilet unreliability. The pools were like big bowls of human soup. The ice shows (ICE SHOWS!) contained much falling. On both trips, I came to see the vessel not so much as an unfathomably massive ship, but rather more like a floating small town I couldn't pack up and run away from. Not for seven days, at least.
So, I can honestly say that I hadn't really ever planned on taking another cruise. Until April, when after a difficult day of fifth grade, which a different kid might have dealt with by eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes while watching cartoons he usually says he's too old for, my son tried to end his life.
It was a surreal day. I got a call at my desk from my literary agent saying I'd sold a young adult novel, a completely unexpected surprise! Then minutes later, I got a call from my husband, telling me what had happened, a completely unexpected surprise.
That's not true. If I'm being honest, I must have known somewhere in my amygdalae that something was wrong. The little boy who, as a toddler, would emit a deep belly laugh at the sight of a brick wall (Don't. Ask. Me.) had become sullen and withdrawn. Nothing was fun. Nothing was funny. Nothing was good. Sweatpants were worn continually. But, I told myself that all pre-teens sulk. I told myself that his teacher was kind of a bitch who didn't "get" him. I told myself that while I understood that up to thirty percent of kids who are diagnosed with conditions like ADD* also suffer from depression, that we had dodged a bullet. I told myself until I couldn't tell myself anymore.
By the time I got to E., he was in a hospital bed with a professional watcher sitting outside his door paging through a fucking gossip magazine like the world was still right side-up. A nurse came in and quietly reprimanded her for not removing his wastebasket. He looked hollow and humiliated and small. People always say someone looks small in a hospital bed, because they've been somehow reduced by their sickness. My boy looked small because he was ten years old.
I spent at least one hundred and eighty minutes holding his nail-bitten hand and staring at him through unbidden lenses of tears, not speaking. I imagine everyone who's ever been through something like this does similarly, because it feels like if you utter any words about what has happened, that you are making it more real and more true and more likely to visit your house again. But depression is not a vampire awaiting a verbal invitation. It will come in when it damn well pleases.
When I finally found my words, I settled on just one question. "When was the last time you remember feeling happy?" E. fiddled with his ID band and cleared his raspy, bruised throat.
"It wasn't Christmas. I always love Christmas, but not this year. It wasn't Halloween either." My kid is a holiday-holic of Martha Stewartian proportions and his admission that his two favorites had passed without being thrilling to him was like a punch in the guts. "I guess the last time? The last time I was happy was when we all took that Nickelodeon cruise together. I remember it. That was when."
I fell asleep that night with my head on his thin cotton blanket knowing what I was going to do. I was going to take that damn book advance and bring that kid on another cruise to make him remember what happy felt like.
Now, don't misunderstand. I didn't and don't harbor any illusions that a Caribbean cruise is a cure for childhood clinical depression. There is no cure. There are just websites containing lists of warning signs and phone numbers for doctors that will not take your case and varying arguments about how best to treat a child in this position and papers on whether treatment is really ever very effective at all.
When I was pregnant, I always kidded that the book "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" should be called, "Every Single Thing That Could Possibly Go Wrong In the Next Nine Months, But Probably Won't, But You Will Still Worry to the Point of Almost Vomiting Daily". Well, imagine if books on childhood depression were accurately titled. How would you choose between "Everybody Is So Relieved He's Your Kid and Not Theirs" and "You and Your Child May Be Doomed"?
So, while I probably should have taken that little windfall and socked it away for exorbitant insurance premiums (Did you know that a suicide attempt is considered a pre-existing condition for five years after it happens? I do now!) I decided that since there is no Make-A-Wish fund for sad kids, we'd shoot just about the whole wad on a cruise. And I don't regret it.
Since April, E. had been hard at work on a program of cognitive behavioral therapy and swallowing Omega-3 capsules like Liza Minelli used to swallow anything pill-shaped in the Studio 54 days. He had no idea about this trip and, in fact, we never revealed it to him (or his long-suffering baby brother) until we were en route to the aging-but-spotless Explorer of the Seas docked in beautiful Bayonne New Jersey.** On July 22nd, we set sail for Bermuda, St. Marten, St. Thomas and Puerto Rico then back again. And though thirteen years had gone by since DFW journaled his trip, not much had changed. There were pitiful talent shows and bacchanalian buffets. There were sunburned couples in tacky formalwear posing for photos in front of a fabric sunset backdrop when a real sunset was ten feet away. And there was E., a serious camera he'd scrubbed toilets to buy around his neck, hanging over the railing to get a great photo of that sunset, scaring the shit out of me the way a kid is supposed to.
He took about two thousand photos over the course of nine days. Really good photos, in my humble parental opinion. When he's holding that camera, there is a confidence that doesn't exist when he is trying to divide fifteen by ten and express the remainder in a reduced fraction. His focus, which too often betrays him, is his ally for once. He sees everything. He captures everything.
He feeds lettuce from his sandwich to an iguana on Sapphire Bay Beach in St. Thomas. On finding a snorkeling mask floating unclaimed in the waves at Horseshoe Bay in Bermuda, he declares, "This is a gift from Poseidon!" and swims off in pursuit of a Parrot Fish who is, incomprehensibly, bluer than the ocean. And as we walk across the sand that is really pink, just as the brochures promised, he says to me, "When I grow up, I want to live in a place like this." And while a different mother might have heard, "I cannot wait to get away from you in eight years," what I heard was, "Blah blah blah blah…I want to live…blah blah blah blah blah." A bargain at seventy-jillion times the price.
I am no David Foster Wallace. But you can understand why I think of him.***
*ADD is a condition that people doubt is real. They say, "In my day, we called that being a daydreamer!" I usually smile and say "Yeah." But right now I'd like to say to nobody in particular, "In your day you probably also called Asian people 'Orientals' so zip it, because you have no idea." I've got a kid who can read Dickens like the Dickens, but can't follow the directions on a box of Duncan Hines brownies because when he moves his eyes from the ingredients to the steps, he's become forever and hopelessly lost. I've got a kid who can draw with a surprising command of perspective, but cannot retain the multiplication tables no matter how many tips and tricks and drills he submits to. It exhausts me and I'm not even the one it is happening to, so is it any wonder that he feels beaten? ADD isreal and the ONLY time it's anything short of awful is when a kid is finally pushed to his limit but can't figure out precisely how to hang himself successfully. Then it's handy.
**Okay, a second miniscule advantage to ADD is that if you're trying to surprise an ADD kid with a big trip, he will not notice that all of his shorts are missing from his drawers and that you're loading an entire suite of orange luggage into the minivan.
***I hope that if you have not yet had children and you are on the fence about it, that I have not convinced you to sterilize yourself.**** I'm not gonna lie, my kid's road is going to be long, and we plan to walk it with him no matter where it goes. But for every single thing that makes being his parent a challenge, there are nine things that make being his parent a delight. I wouldn't trade him for anything, which is great, because I think trading your kids is frowned upon.
****If I DID convince you to sterilize yourself, I'd like to suggest that you head to the drugstore and buy a tub of baby wipes anyway. There is no reason that people who've decided not to procreate should be kept in the dark about how useful those things are. They're not just for poop!
Cat Box
There is a cat in a box in my garage. There is something about a box that is so irresistible to a cat that no matter how cranky or aloof, at the sight of a corrugated cube, he reverts to kittenhood, crouching within, ready to playfully swipe at your ankles as you pass. Usually. The cat I'm talking about is in a box because he's dead.
We got Martin and his brother, Peanut, when my mum, a social worker, rescued them from some clients that I think specialized in unintentionally murdering small things. They weighed a few ounces each and were nearly constipated to death from being force fed ground food when their mouths were open to cry. Supposedly, they'd been rejected by their mother.
Peanut was more robust. But Martin was alarmingly floppy. We warmed them with hot water bottles and fed them with tiny kitty formula bottles. When they ate, their full stomachs made them look like strange furry light bulbs. Every hour they lived was a milestone, but even as they gradually stood and held up their heads and acted less terminal, I couldn't bring myself to take any pictures of them. Because I knew how it was. I knew there were never any promises with animals and that the odds were stacked so high against these two. I knew that to take a photo would be to tempt their fate.
But they lived.
They lived to see us graduate from college and to move into our first apartment together. They lived through the first election of Rudolph Giuliani. They lived to play this game where they would embrace each other with their heads at opposing ends and use their hind feet to kick each other in the face rhythmically, then eat a hole in the side of a box of Triscuits to gorge themselves, then fall asleep spooning each other like a grey and white incestuous quotation mark. They lived through our long engagement-bordering- on-common-law marriage and then, two weeks before our wedding, Peanut, the brother we worried so much less about in those early days, got sick. Acute renal failure. Sudden and swift and final. I went to the animal hospital to say goodbye, but I couldn't stay when they did that thing we humans copingly call "putting to sleep". Yep, I'm a coward.
But Marty lived.
When we brought him to the animal hospital to make sure that he didn't have the same thing that caused his brother's kidneys to shut down, we learned two things. The first was that he had been born with only one kidney, all the better to suffer kidney failure with! The second was that when under stressful enough circumstances, say being examined in a hospital where you can probably smell that your twin was euthanized, a cat can have a panic attack, complete with a racing pulse and hyperventilation. If you've never seen a cat hyperventilate, imagine what a person looks like hyperventilating, except a cat. Try getting a cat to breathe into a paper bag or put his head between his knees, wherever those are. On learning of these deficiencies, we knew that it was a total fluke that Marty had outlived his seven year-old brother, and we prepared to lose him too, whether from a broken heart or an anxiety-induced exploding heart, sooner rather than later.
But Marty lived!
Through new jobs and moves. Through the Bush administration. Through the birth of two children and, I imagine, a catlike realization that while the arrival of those children put our love for him in a more adult/lower priority perspective, that if he hung in there, those children would, in turn, be fucking crazy about him. His patience paid off. Fucking craziness of the loving kind ensued.
When Martin had a stroke about five years ago, we started to prepare the boys. "Marty is old," we said. "This might be the end." But after lurching around in circles for a few days, he seemingly shook it off. When he had another stroke about a year ago, we said, "Okay, this is probably it. For real this time." The boys begged us to wait and see, asking us to get out their old portable playpen so that he could recuperate comfortably and safely. We humored them, exchanging sad, knowing glances, until that goddamned superhero of a cat was strong enough to jump over the side of his hospital bed and resume normal cattivities. If you don't care about animals like animal people care about animals, you'll roll your eyes, but if you're not a monster, you'll understand. This last year was his gift to us. Then, as if he'd been marking days off on a calendar, time was up. (For the record, I have no concrete proof that my cat was able to read a calendar, but I have no concrete proof that he couldn't, either.)
Martin lived twenty years! Twenty PEOPLE years, which in cat years is way longer than anybody is supposed to live, including Dr. Dean Ornish. Twenty years with an inauspicious start and one kidney and a panic disorder! Twenty years eating things like Triscuits and Triscuit boxes, and worse, whatever is in cat food. Who had four paws and lived the shit out of all nine of his lives? That cat!
And for all of the love and respect he deserves, he's in a box in our garage because he died, we think, while we decorated our Christmas tree on Saturday night and wasn't discovered until after the kids were fast asleep. And while we want the boys to be able to mourn Marty and participate in laying him to rest, if they wish, we didn't want to spoil a brunch we'd planned with friends they've been wanting to visit on Sunday, and we couldn't see giving them the bad news right before I left for a late shift at work Sunday night. We can't tell them before they leave for school on Monday, so it'll have to be Monday when they come home. Unless something comes up. My hope is that we figure out the right moment to break it to them before my older son gets his drivers license in five years and insists on gaining access to the garage.
Thank you, Martin the cat. For being the first to teach us that we could take care of something. For never lording your seniority over newer members of our family. For dying when it was below freezing. And for letting us do this, not that you could protest. But if anybody would understand hanging on for just a little while longer, it's you.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I Would Do Again in a Second
Right off the bat, I've done a dumb thing. By calling this um…blog…entry what I have, it looks like I've set up a comparison between myself, a joke writer (to be generous), and David Foster Wallace, a guy who was a really real writer to the realest real degree. A hyper-literate person reading this might even be moved to ask, "Who in Abaddon does she think she is?" to which my answer would be, "Definitely not David Foster Wallace. Nope. Nuh uh." I'm just a chick with a Tumblr who wants to talk about some stuff.
My title, of course, is a respectful nod to DFW's 1997 collection of essays, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again" which contains the piece "Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise" which originally and famously appeared in Harper's, a magazine for "smarts." In it, he describes his adventures aboard the MV Zenith, and he describes himself too, by his habit of doing things like nicknaming the ship the "Nadir" and explaining how all of the forced pampering and relaxation ultimately led him to feel despair. Indeed, he uses the word 'despair' no fewer than eight times throughout the article, and although he is painfully funny, knowing what we now know about what would occur in his future, it is also merely painful.
I'd been on two cruises before. One, in my twenties, was paid for by the generous father of a friend whose family went on bi-yearly cruises and believed that massive ocean liners were really the only way to get anywhere worth getting to. The second, many years later, was a Nickelodeon Family Cruise, which me and my now-husband and now-children were able to take at a discounted rate because of my long-time employment at Viacom. Even with the discount, to sail the seas with the cast of iCarly still cost a year's worth of mortgage payments. Put that in your despair-pipe and try to smoke it.
If you haven't read the essay, you really should, even though if you're anything like me, it will require you to sometimes stop and look up what words like "thanatopic" and "peripeteia" mean. (Don't worry! I won't spoil the definitions for you here!)
I cannot disagree with any of what David Foster Wallace says about cruising. For me, it all inelegantly came down to a morbid fascination with how much intricately carved fruit people seemed to be ingesting versus a mounting, and unfortunately quite rational, fear of shipboard toilet unreliability. The pools were like big bowls of human soup. The ice shows (ICE SHOWS!) contained much falling. On both trips, I came to see the vessel not so much as an unfathomably massive ship, but rather more like a floating small town I couldn't pack up and run away from. Not for seven days, at least.
So, I can honestly say that I hadn't really ever planned on taking another cruise. Until April, when after a difficult day of fifth grade, which a different kid might have dealt with by eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes while watching cartoons he usually says he's too old for, my son tried to end his life.
It was a surreal day. I got a call at my desk from my literary agent saying I'd sold a young adult novel, a completely unexpected surprise! Then minutes later, I got a call from my husband, telling me what had happened, a completely unexpected surprise.
That's not true. If I'm being honest, I must have known somewhere in my amygdalae that something was wrong. The little boy who, as a toddler, would emit a deep belly laugh at the sight of a brick wall (Don't. Ask. Me.) had become sullen and withdrawn. Nothing was fun. Nothing was funny. Nothing was good. Sweatpants were worn continually. But, I told myself that all pre-teens sulk. I told myself that his teacher was kind of a bitch who didn't "get" him. I told myself that while I understood that up to thirty percent of kids who are diagnosed with conditions like ADD* also suffer from depression, that we had dodged a bullet. I told myself until I couldn't tell myself anymore.
By the time I got to E., he was in a hospital bed with a professional watcher sitting outside his door paging through a fucking gossip magazine like the world was still right side-up. A nurse came in and quietly reprimanded her for not removing his wastebasket. He looked hollow and humiliated and small. People always say someone looks small in a hospital bed, because they've been somehow reduced by their sickness. My boy looked small because he was ten years old.
I spent at least one hundred and eighty minutes holding his nail-bitten hand and staring at him through unbidden lenses of tears, not speaking. I imagine everyone who's ever been through something like this does similarly, because it feels like if you utter any words about what has happened, that you are making it more real and more true and more likely to visit your house again. But depression is not a vampire awaiting a verbal invitation. It will come in when it damn well pleases.
When I finally found my words, I settled on just one question. "When was the last time you remember feeling happy?" E. fiddled with his ID band and cleared his raspy, bruised throat.
"It wasn't Christmas. I always love Christmas, but not this year. It wasn't Halloween either." My kid is a holiday-holic of Martha Stewartian proportions and his admission that his two favorites had passed without being thrilling to him was like a punch in the guts. "I guess the last time? The last time I was happy was when we all took that Nickelodeon cruise together. I remember it. That was when."
I fell asleep that night with my head on his thin cotton blanket knowing what I was going to do. I was going to take that damn book advance and bring that kid on another cruise to make him remember what happy felt like.
Now, don't misunderstand. I didn't and don't harbor any illusions that a Caribbean cruise is a cure for childhood clinical depression. There is no cure. There are just websites containing lists of warning signs and phone numbers for doctors that will not take your case and varying arguments about how best to treat a child in this position and papers on whether treatment is really ever very effective at all.
When I was pregnant, I always kidded that the book "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" should be called, "Every Single Thing That Could Possibly Go Wrong In the Next Nine Months, But Probably Won't, But You Will Still Worry to the Point of Almost Vomiting Daily". Well, imagine if books on childhood depression were accurately titled. How would you choose between "Everybody Is So Relieved He's Your Kid and Not Theirs" and "You and Your Child May Be Doomed"?
So, while I probably should have taken that little windfall and socked it away for exorbitant insurance premiums (Did you know that a suicide attempt is considered a pre-existing condition for five years after it happens? I do now!) I decided that since there is no Make-A-Wish fund for sad kids, we'd shoot just about the whole wad on a cruise. And I don't regret it.
Since April, E. had been hard at work on a program of cognitive behavioral therapy and swallowing Omega-3 capsules like Liza Minelli used to swallow anything pill-shaped in the Studio 54 days. He had no idea about this trip and, in fact, we never revealed it to him (or his long-suffering baby brother) until we were en route to the aging-but-spotless Explorer of the Seas docked in beautiful Bayonne New Jersey.** On July 22nd, we set sail for Bermuda, St. Marten, St. Thomas and Puerto Rico then back again. And though thirteen years had gone by since DFW journaled his trip, not much had changed. There were pitiful talent shows and bacchanalian buffets. There were sunburned couples in tacky formalwear posing for photos in front of a fabric sunset backdrop when a real sunset was ten feet away. And there was E., a serious camera he'd scrubbed toilets to buy around his neck, hanging over the railing to get a great photo of that sunset, scaring the shit out of me the way a kid is supposed to.
He took about two thousand photos over the course of nine days. Really good photos, in my humble parental opinion. When he's holding that camera, there is a confidence that doesn't exist when he is trying to divide fifteen by ten and express the remainder in a reduced fraction. His focus, which too often betrays him, is his ally for once. He sees everything. He captures everything.
He feeds lettuce from his sandwich to an iguana on Sapphire Bay Beach in St. Thomas. On finding a snorkeling mask floating unclaimed in the waves at Horseshoe Bay in Bermuda, he declares, "This is a gift from Poseidon!" and swims off in pursuit of a Parrot Fish who is, incomprehensibly, bluer than the ocean. And as we walk across the sand that is really pink, just as the brochures promised, he says to me, "When I grow up, I want to live in a place like this." And while a different mother might have heard, "I cannot wait to get away from you in eight years," what I heard was, "Blah blah blah blah…I want to live…blah blah blah blah blah." A bargain at seventy-jillion times the price.
I am no David Foster Wallace. But you can understand why I think of him.***
*ADD is a condition that people doubt is real. They say, "In my day, we called that being a daydreamer!" I usually smile and say "Yeah." But right now I'd like to say to nobody in particular, "In your day you probably also called Asian people 'Orientals' so zip it, because you have no idea." I've got a kid who can read Dickens like the Dickens, but can't follow the directions on a box of Duncan Hines brownies because when he moves his eyes from the ingredients to the steps, he's become forever and hopelessly lost. I've got a kid who can draw with a surprising command of perspective, but cannot retain the multiplication tables no matter how many tips and tricks and drills he submits to. It exhausts me and I’m not even the one it is happening to, so is it any wonder that he feels beaten? ADD is real and the ONLY time it’s anything short of awful is when a kid is finally pushed to his limit but can't figure out precisely how to hang himself successfully. Then it's handy.
**Okay, a second miniscule advantage to ADD is that if you're trying to surprise an ADD kid with a big trip, he will not notice that all of his shorts are missing from his drawers and that you're loading an entire suite of orange luggage into the minivan.
***I hope that if you have not yet had children and you are on the fence about it, that I have not convinced you to sterilize yourself.**** I'm not gonna lie, my kid's road is going to be long, and we plan to walk it with him no matter where it goes. But for every single thing that makes being his parent a challenge, there are nine things that make being his parent a delight. I wouldn't trade him for anything, which is great, because I think trading your kids is frowned upon.
****If I DID convince you to sterilize yourself, I’d like to suggest that you head to the drugstore and buy a tub of baby wipes anyway. There is no reason that people who've decided not to procreate should be kept in the dark about how useful those things are. They're not just for poop!
Proverb, 1989
I'll make this quickish, because you don't have all goddamned day.
Back in high school, let's say eleventh grade, I needed to bring my biology grade up because I loved getting A's and I was failing at that. I loathed this situation. Not only because I was ashamed. Not only because my own mother was a former biology teacher who had lost her job due to the passage of Proposition 2 ½ in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, yet never became bitter toward biology itself. It was mostly because my teacher (who had been my mom's high school biology teacher, and later her colleague and then her friend) was a ghoul.
Mr. K was meant to be well over six feet tall, but his spine was twisted into a crook that made it look like his head was somehow attached to the bottom of his own neck and, depending on what he was wearing, as if there was a plaid or pinstriped hill looming behind him. Of course, the way the man was put together was not his fault. But I do think he was kind of…into it. He used the phrase; "I have a hunch…" in class way more than I think was strictly necessary. And every kid knew he spent his free time hunting graveyards to photograph long-forgotten historical headstones. Or at least that was his cover story. He was cultivating an image for himself, and if life gives you a hump, why not keep a jarred fetus in your coat closet? (Did you think I was going to say, "If life gives you a hump, make humpade"? I thought about it.)
So the question I had to ask myself was whether I was more terrified of Mr. K or more terrified of not getting perfect grades. Realizing the answer, I steeled myself, and clutching my textbooks in front of me to protect my soft tissues, I crept up to his desk and whine-spered, "Is there anything I can do for extra credit?"
"Sit…down," he scary-plied.
I sat down. I looked down - down at the cold, grey soapstone countertop that had permanently absorbed the stink of formaldehyde and the restless spirits of a million frogs. I dared not look up. I didn't care if I grew a hump. But then…as the minute hand lurched ahead and the class lurched to a close, and Mr. K lurched forward, not unlike that butler from The Addams Family whose name I can't remember right now, he said, "Some of you have inquired about extra credit. Normally, I wouldn't offer it. But as it happens, I am raising an army of Dermestid beetles to do my bidding and they are hungry. Hungry for flesh! Anyone who brings me a freshly dead animal for my beauties to feast upon will receive extra credit. The larger the animal, the larger the increase in your grade. Mu-hu-hu-wah-ha-ha-haaaaa!" (He may have not said it in exactly-exactly those words, but the fact remains that he was not asking us to clap his erasers.)
One of my bolder classmates slid up a hand and asked, "Where…where…um, should we, um…"
Mr. K raised a hand to interrupt, "I don't care. Perhaps you should keep your eyes peeled for road kill or something." (Here, I am not exaggerating. This is what he said.)
I left class that day, knowing what I had to do. After school I put some plastic grocery bags in the back of my car along with a rusty garden trowel. I drove around town scanning the gutters for a flattened chipmunk or squirrel. But here was the problem: there is never any carrion around when you need it! After hours of desperate searching, I returned home, defeated and called my steady boyfriend, Cletus Rothschild.*
Cletus Rothschild was from a few towns over and we met in Driver's Ed. Like me, he lived on a farm, but unlike me, his family owned their farm and he was rich. He was a sixteen year-old rich redneck with an expensive pickup truck, a barbed wire scar across his neck from clotheslining himself on a fence while riding his dirt bike, a gun collection and a paralyzed left hand.**
Cletus loved me sooo much, that he got very agitated whenever he didn't know exactly where I was and so I had a lot of explaining to do about what I'd been doing all day and why. There was a lot of grilling and quizzing and checking and rechecking to make sure there were no holes in my story about patrolling for woodland creature corpses all day. In Cletus' defense, my schpiel did sound pretty crazy. That time. But Cletus was just as thorough in his interrogations even when we were on a date and I was in the bathroom longer than he was comfortable with. Now that I'm thinking about it, my relationship with Cletus might have had a little something to do with why my grades had slipped a bit.
Cletus wanted to drive over to see me, but it was a school night and I wasn't supposed to have anybody in the house. I also wasn't allowed to tie up the phone for more than an hour, and even though my mother was out, I feared she would call and get a busy signal. I said, "No, you hang up. No, YOU hang up…Okay, I'm hanging uuuuup now. Okay, I'm really hanging up now…" I hung up. Have you ever been a sixteen year-old girl standing in your socks on the cracked linoleum in the hallway outside the bathroom where the only sound in the whole house is the ghost of a bell inside the old black Bakelite wall phone where you've just replaced the receiver? Holy shit is it lonely.
In my room, I turned on the television and got in bed.
When I awoke in the morning, my television was off and there was a note stuck to the screen. Cletus' handwriting. "There is a surprise for you in your car." Wow, I thought. My boyfriend has surprised me! He came into my house, during the night while I was alone and asleep, probably stood over my bed for some time staring at me, and then left a note to tell me that he'd let himself into my car to leave some kind of surprise! Is that romantic, or what? Please, someone tell me whether or not that is romantic, because if it isn't, I don't know what is, quite obviously!
My mother had already gone to work, so I showered very quickly, because of Psycho and that Rockwell song. I threw on some clothes, grabbed my books and headed out to my car, not knowing what to expect. I mean, I guess I was expecting a teddy bear in the front seat, or maybe even a little velvet box in the glove compartment. What I actually got was a Rubbermaid Roughneck garbage can wedged into the back seat of my 1981 Mercury Capri. And an odor. I yanked at the barrel, dragging it out into my dirt driveway. It had some weight. Nervously, I pried the lid off and opened it. There, looking up at me from within, was the severed head of a cow.
I don't care how much you live on a farm, you are never ready to open up a can of cow's head. I held up my forearm and breathed through my sleeve. The disembodied cow no longer had any of her stomachs, but the smell was making me sick to all three of mine. (I'm kidding! I'm not that bad at biology. I know humans only have two stomachs.)
Knowing I couldn't just leave my…present…in the driveway, without eventual consequences from my mother, or Cletus, or the ASPCA, I heaved it back into my car and drove to school with my head hanging out the window like a dog.
I parked in the student lot and dragged the barrel back out. I dragged it down the street. I dragged it up several flights of stairs, bump after nauseating bump. I've never actually picked something up and said, "Damn, this is heavier than a cow's head in a trash can!" but if I did, it would mean that thing was fucking heavy. Finally, arms and legs burning with effort, I arrived at Mr. K's class and dragged it up to his desk. "For your beetles," I said, removing the lid.
Mr. K looked inside and just like that, everything was different. Just like that, I was a little less afraid of Mr. K and Mr. K, I think, was a little more afraid of me.
I got an A in biology that quarter, which was either because my flesh offering was so huge or because Mr. K liked having his oddly-situated head just where it was. And I learned that a man who collects beetles and babies in jars is not even close to the scariest thing. And that the human body has up to 4,986 bones. (Kidding!)
There's really no need to get into what was the scariest thing, because I already told you that you don't have all goddamned day, but the moral of the part of this story that I'm not going to tell you is: If a boy will saw the head off of something for you, he will also saw the head off of you for something. So break up with that boy.
*Not his real name. In reality, he shared a name with a character actor who appeared in at least four episodes of every television series in the 1960's. His mother had done that on purpose.
**The paralysis resulted from a botched surgery to remove a tumor from his arm during childhood. The hand was totally devoid of feeling and one time I walked up to him while he was working on his truck, and smelling something burning, realized he had rested his palm on the radiator. Another time, he had tried to use it to twist the cap off a beer bottle at some bonfire party, before realizing it was a non-twist top. When I got home that night, and turned on the lights in my room, my adorable outfit was covered with bloody dead-hand prints.
Ignore
People complain tons and tons about Facebook. Sometimes I pile on the bandwagon for fun, but I don't really mind it. Old high school acquaintances revealing their conservative leanings? Whaddyagunnado? People asking me to play Farmville? Relatively harmless. Even when my father died suddenly this year, and I obsessively checked and refreshed his page to see that time after time, another of his friends "threw a bucket of KFC at his wall," I tried not to get too worked up about it. (But now that I'm bringing it up, blocking Facebook apps is the new getting your affairs in order. Do you really want someone throwing a virtual "bucket of KFC" at your wall after you've died?)
Truth is, despite how mundane and silly it can be, I mostly see Facebook as a good thing. Was I happy to discover that my ten year-old son was hiding a Facebook page from us that contained information that could jeopardize his safety? No, but we had a serious talk about it and told him in no uncertain terms that you cannot just put it out on the internet that you're a huge fan of George Lopez without potentially dangerous consequences. He understands now.
So, I like Facebook just fine. I like knowing that my friend's mom has a headache from too much wine. I like looking at baby pictures posted by a former coworker I don't like that much, but they still have a pretty cute baby. I like that there is a place that, when I need to, I can send my dad a message saying something I wish I had had the guts to say to him when he was alive. We talk more now.
Not long ago, I was helping a friend with a project that required a little experiment. He asked me to update my Facebook status frequently, like, one hundred times a day for three days, in as dull a manner as possible. That's about one update every ten minutes during waking hours, if you divide one hundred by sixteen hours, then 60 minutes by 6.25 updates. Which I wish I had bothered to figure out before I agreed, but I didn't. My friend hypothesized that most of my Facebook pals would dump me and I kind of felt that if some did dump me, our friendships were just superficial and good riddance and all that. After the three days were up and my friend interviewed me, I believe he was astonished to learn that not only had I lost just two friends, I had GAINED three NEW friends. And my heart was warmed, because in addition to folks not dumping me, some commented on my boring statuses and 'liked' them. Some friends sent messages saying I didn't seem like myself, and asking if I was okay. Some friends phoned me and said, "I don't know what crazy thing you're up to, but I know you're up to something and it is cracking me the hell up whatever it is." I'm also certain a lot of people hid my updates and, to this day, believe that I'm a compulsive reporter of tedium. But just the fact that they hid me rather than severing ties with me seems to mean that they didn't want to hurt my feelings. Even that is something I can feel good about.
Complaints about redesign and privacy issues aside, almost everything about Facebook makes me feel good, and nothing makes me feel more good than a friend request. A friend request is like finding a dollar in my pocket. When someone that has been tucked away in a far corner of my mind knocks on my electronic door, my instinct is to fling it open and let them in! Yes, I've heard all your horror stories about the girlfriends of ex-boyfriends friending you and how you had to de-friend your best friend because she was friends with a waitress from Friendly's who you think is unfriendly. I'm making fun of you, but you see my point. No? Okay, my point is that I love and accept all friend requests on Facebook! Or I did, until this week. This week, I ignored one.
This week, I ignored a Facebook friend request from my cousin, Miroslav O'Reilly.* At first I was confused when I got the email, because Miroslav has the same name as his father, whom I am already friends with on Facebook, and then when I saw his picture I was still momentarily befuddled because it had been so long since I had seen him and he looks just like his father twenty years ago. But when I figured it out, I clicked 'Ignore' and that was that. But it isn't.
I certainly don't owe Miroslav O'Reilly, Jr. an explanation about why I ignored him, and I don't owe you one. Not to be mean, it's just that I don't. But I do owe it to myself, I think. I owe it to myself to have the guts to finally say things and so I will try.
I ignored Miroslav's friend request because he made my life harder than it needed to be. When my dad was working in the asbestosy air of a Ford parts rebuilding factory and my mom was working with big boxes in a big box toy store and I was small and being cheaply babysat by Miroslav's mother and Miroslav was close to being a teenager, and big for his age… Well, here's the part where I always stop. Where words, usually my most faithful playmates, always fail me. You know what Miroslav did, right? Do I have to say it?
Like my calf circumference, the fact that I am a you-know-what survivor is something I try to conceal. (Ugh? Survivor? Really? Now all I can think of is Jeff Probst.) But like my calf circumference, that other thing I don't like talking about, just…is. And while some may argue that calf circumference is genetic while this other thing is certainly not, I would point out that this other thing might as well be genetic for the way it snakes itself in and around and through a family. Would I have preferred a vestigial tail? Sure, but the other thing is what I got, so…
So. So what? Sew buttons. I am stalling.
What I really want to ask is why? Why am I the one left with a lifetime of awkwardness and guilt? It isn't as if I was walking around in low-cut Garanimals. This was not at all my fault. I tell myself this every day of my life, but then I soften and ask if it was Miroslav's fault either. What the eff had happened to him to make him do this, and what had happened to the person who had done it to him? And what had happened to that person? I could go on pitying theoretical chains of perpetrators for hours, until I get mad at myself. Mad. At. Myself.
And I guess a little mad at Miroslav. So maybe I should address the rest of this to him, even knowing he'll never read it. It works with those notes to my dad.
Miroslav, I ignored your friend request because when I was seven or eight, I woke everybody up in the middle of the night screaming because it burned when I peed. And everyone stood around the toilet splashing cold water on me, but nobody asked any questions and it was humiliating.
I ignored your friend request because when I was sixteen and I thought that I would die of sadness, I wrote a note to my mother and left it for her to find when she came in from an evening of dancing. And while you were drinking beer and driving trucks, I was in group-counseling with a bunch of hard, angry girls and all I could ever say was, "What happened to me wasn't as bad as what happened to all of you. Really. I shouldn't be here. I'm missing play rehearsal."
I ignored your friend request because even when, after years, it suddenly stopped, it didn't stop. The end of any relationship has the potential to screw a girl up, but I'll tell you what…nothing but nothing will screw her up like wondering if she's become too boring to abuse anymore. (It is okay to laugh at that if you did. I did. It's okay to laugh at the absurdity of difficult things. I'm giving you my permission. Not you, Miroslav. I'm speaking to anyone else who might be reading this.)
I ignored your friend request because I spent so many years successfully avoiding you and then suddenly, there you were, on my laptop, kinda ruining something that I had previously liked. And I wonder to myself. I wonder to my 38 year-old self, did he forget? I'm not sure whether it is worse to imagine that you'd forgotten or worse to imagine that you remembered and made the request anyway. But, because I am thorough, I have spent a little time imagining both scenarios and wishing I weren't so imaginative. People are always saying, "Use your imagination" like it is so fun and freeing and to those people I say, "No, you use YOUR imagination." I use a scary voice when I say that too, so they know I'm not fooling around.
I ignored your friend request because at least I could do that. I can't stop myself from jumping out of my skin when someone puts a hand on my shoulder from behind, but at least I could do that.
And now I feel almost like I should apologize. Not to Miroslav O'Reilly, Jr. but to anyone who read this thinking it would be funny or friendly and instead wound up with a snootful of "Oh, dear." I know it's ugly. But ugly is the gas that ripens funny. And anybody you've ever thought of as funny is probably just a walking scab with a roiling sea of bloody pus underneath. Even George Lopez.
I vaguely remember that in your closing paragraph, you are supposed to restate your thesis. So lest this be the most disorganized, upsetting ramble in the history of disorganized, upsetting rambles, let me close by saying, Facebook isn't always as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Except for just this one time.
*Not his real name.
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